Navigate:

Latest mosque issue: The money trail

Following the money trail for the proposed mosque is adding to drama surrounding project. |
AP Photo
Close

The Chernicks did not respond to messages relayed through Horowitz and a spokesman. But according to Horowitz, Joyce Chernick offered four years ago to fund Spencer and Jihad Watch, then functioning as a stand-alone nonprofit, under the Horowitz Center’s organizational umbrella.

Horowitz said Spencer, who is writing a pamphlet on the mosque for the Horowitz Center, is “part of our small but evidently effective family.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

The Freedom Center had a budget of $4.5 million last year, according to its tax filings, of which $290,000 came from the conservative Bradley Foundation, which also gave $75,000 to the Center for Security Policy last year. Horowitz has received an average of $461,000 a year in salary and benefits over the past three years, while Spencer has pulled in an average of $140,000, according to the center’s IRS filings.

But, Horowitz said, “Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, Pam Geller — we don’t do this for the money — we do this because we believe in it.”

The Freedom Center funds the Jihad Watch website and is paying for events promoting Spencer and Geller’s recently released book, but Horowitz said it is not paying for Spencer and Geller’s Sept. 11 protest or the controversial ads they placed on New York City buses, depicting a plane flying toward a burning World Trade Center next to a rendering of the Park51 building.

The ads were placed by a group called the Coalition for the Preservation of Ground Zero for a one-month run starting Aug. 16, at a cost of $8,000, according to New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

That coalition, which is separate from Burlingame’s, is a project of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a nonprofit run by Geller and Spencer and incorporated at the same Bedford, N.H., address at which Jihad Watch was first registered in 2005.

Geller said the AFDI has raised money from individual donations and grants from nonprofit organizations, and Spencer last month told The Washington Post that he and Geller were able to raise $50,000 in recent months for taxi and bus ads.

In a Jihad Watch posting this week, Geller and Spencer called for donations to help fund their Sept. 11 rally and predicted costs could exceed $50,000.

The post concluded that “POLITICO is answering Nancy Pelosi's authoritarian, un-American call to investigate opponents of the mosque and is nosing around our finances — all they'll discover is that we have no huge donations and are relying on the support of free Americans to make this rally a reality.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Aubrey Chernick had been a trustee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Readers' Comments (1284)

The sources of the Mosque financing is very important. We have strict regulations as to source and use of funds especially when they come from foreign sources. Despite what Nancy Pelosi thinks, we need to have a detailed list available for the public. I like the majority of Americans hope the developers will choose a different site for the groud-zero mosque.

Is it not just funny as hell that the co owner of FOX Propaganda and the man that pays all of the pundits like Glenn (the tax cheat) Beck and Sean (the coward) Hannity, a Saudi Muslim is funding this mosque?

Is it not just funny as hell that the co owner of FOX Propaganda and the man that pays all of the pundits like Glenn (the tax cheat) Beck and Sean (the coward) Hannity, a Saudi Muslim is funding this mosque?

Is it not just funny as hell that the co owner of FOX Propaganda and the man that pays all of the pundits like Glenn (the tax cheat) Beck and Sean (the coward) Hannity, a Saudi Muslim is funding this mosque?

The sources of the Mosque financing is very important. We have strict regulations as to source and use of funds especially when they come from foreign sources. Despite what Nancy Pelosi thinks, we need to have a detailed list available for the public. I like the majority of Americans hope the developers will choose a different site for the groud-zero mosque.

Yes like why in the hell are we allowing the foreign owners of FOX Propaganda an Australian and Saudi Muslim donating over a million dollars to the GOP. Every true American should be appalled that these foreigners are attempting to dictate our political future.

The sources of the Mosque financing is very important. We have strict regulations as to source and use of funds especially when they come from foreign sources. Despite what Nancy Pelosi thinks, we need to have a detailed list available for the public. I like the majority of Americans hope the developers will choose a different site for the groud-zero mosque.

Yes like why in the hell are we allowing the foreign owners of FOX Propaganda an Australian and Saudi Muslim donating over a million dollars to the GOP. Every true American should be appalled that these foreigners are attempting to dictate our political future.

The sources of the Mosque financing is very important. We have strict regulations as to source and use of funds especially when they come from foreign sources. Despite what Nancy Pelosi thinks, we need to have a detailed list available for the public. I like the majority of Americans hope the developers will choose a different site for the groud-zero mosque.

Yes like why in the hell are we allowing the foreign owners of FOX Propaganda an Australian and Saudi Muslim donating over a million dollars to the GOP. Every true American should be appalled that these foreigners are attempting to dictate our political future.

The sources of the Mosque financing is very important. We have strict regulations as to source and use of funds especially when they come from foreign sources. Despite what Nancy Pelosi thinks, we need to have a detailed list available for the public. I like the majority of Americans hope the developers will choose a different site for the groud-zero mosque.

Yes like why in the hell are we allowing the foreign owners of FOX Propaganda an Australian and Saudi Muslim donating over a million dollars to the GOP. Every true American should be appalled that these foreigners are attempting to dictate our political future.

The sources of the Mosque financing is very important. We have strict regulations as to source and use of funds especially when they come from foreign sources. Despite what Nancy Pelosi thinks, we need to have a detailed list available for the public. I like the majority of Americans hope the developers will choose a different site for the groud-zero mosque.

Yes like why in the hell are we allowing the foreign owners of FOX Propaganda an Australian and Saudi Muslim donating over a million dollars to the GOP. Every true American should be appalled that these foreigners are attempting to dictate our political future.

NY daily News article, Park 51 developer Sharif El Gamal has a history of run ins with the Law is a good read. There are more thugs attached to the mosque than Congress has. These developers are shady and this article doesn't even mention the money men behind Sharif who guaranteed his 39 million dollar mortgage. His name is Hisham Elzanaty. He donated to Obama's campaign and now owes 331,000 back to NY from an overpayment of medicaid. Looks like pelosi ought to start looking into some government waste $$$ on Elzanaty.

Then there is Moe El Gamal. He was arrested in Florida and is on a million dollar bond. He was alledgedly selling computer equiptment to Lybia. This mosque has a bunch of thugs attached to it, under the guise of a community center. Probably for recruiting thugs. All Saudi. How nice of Obama and the Liberals to support it. Most Americans know we do not need this mosque by GZ run by a Saudi imam on a fundraising trip courtesy of Obama.

NY daily News article, Park 51 developer Sharif El Gamal has a history of run ins with the Law is a good read. There are more thugs attached to the mosque than Congress has. These developers are shady and this article doesn't even mention the money men behind Sharif who guaranteed his 39 million dollar mortgage. His name is Hisham Elzanaty. He donated to Obama's campaign and now owes 331,000 back to NY from an overpayment of medicaid. Looks like pelosi ought to start looking into some government waste $$$ on Elzanaty.

Then there is Moe El Gamal. He was arrested in Florida and is on a million dollar bond. He was alledgedly selling computer equiptment to Lybia. This mosque has a bunch of thugs attached to it, under the guise of a community center. Probably for recruiting thugs. All Saudi. How nice of Obama and the Liberals to support it. Most Americans know we do not need this mosque by GZ run by a Saudi imam on a fundraising trip courtesy of Obama.

hey it's early on a holiday weekend relax, go take your meds, life is to short to be so delusional

Judging by the 1SG's inability to operate a posting function on a web site correctly I have to think she's doing this from a bar somewhere. Let's hope she's not still active duty. Imagine her with a gun?.

Yes like why in the hell are we allowing the foreign owners of FOX Propaganda an Australian and Saudi Muslim donating over a million dollars to the GOP. Every true American should be appalled that these foreigners are attempting to dictate our political future.

Good points...but what really bothers me is ...we have a KENYAN...not an American sitting as President of the USA.

Perhaps someone will also want to build a religious and community center dedicated to Lee Harvey Oswald, near John F Kennedy's grave in Arlington Cemetary. It will help bring people together, promote understanding and tolerance, and heal old wounds.

The real stupid move was for the knee-jerk guilt-assuage crowd to label the crowd behind this Mosque as 'moderate.' When all the details come out, the perception will be "If that's moderate, they all have terrorist sympathy's."